ultimate guide to blockchain growth · 2018-04-23 · audiences . these videos are mostly motion...

ULTIMATE GUIDE TO BLOCKCHAIN GROWTH: Marketing in a Decentralized World1 © 2018 Viewstream, Inc. All rights reserved.

ULTIMATE GUIDE TO BLOCKCHAIN GROWTHMarketing in a Decentralized World

By John Assalian & Joshua Shane

© 2018 Viewstream, Inc. All rights reserved.02

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 03

The Phases of Blockchain Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 04

Why You Need to Engage the Blockchain Community First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 04

Community Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 04

Investment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 05

Minimum Viable Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 05

Approaching the Chasm Before You Try to Cross It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 06

Network Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 06

Blockchain market communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 07

Internal vs . External . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 07

Ecosystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 07

Public Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 08

Content Marketing for Blockchain Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 08

Making the Complex Simple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 08

Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 08

Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 08

Email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 09

Pay for Attention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 09

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Table of Contents

ULTIMATE GUIDE TO BLOCKCHAIN GROWTH: Marketing in a Decentralized World


The future is blockchain and blockchain is the future. There is no doubt about this. Blockchain will be the technology that an array of industries is based upon, including forming contracts, keeping track of ownership, distributing data, and yes, marketing!

Blockchain is best known as the technology that cryptocurrencies are built upon, but they have nearly limitless uses outside of crypto as well . A blockchain is basically just a ledger that, instead of being stored in a single location, is distributed to all users so that each transaction can be verified by everyone who has a copy of the ledger . Large companies such as Walmart and JP Morgan are already investing in blockchain technology, a move that is mirrored on the start-up side as well with over $2 billion dollars invested into ICOs in 2017 . It is only a matter of time before customers in all types of businesses expect the value of blockchain technology to be a part of their user experience .

Thanks for reading!John Assalian & Joshua Shane

Introduction

© 2018 Viewstream, Inc . All rights reserved .


Blockchain is a complex technology driven by the most tightly-knit tech community we’ve been a part of. If you’re the founder of a blockchain company, joining this community is critical to your success, no matter how deeply you’ve mastered your market.

The Phases of Blockchain Marketing

Why You Need to Engage the Blockchain Community First

Working with the cryptocurrency community and ecosystem is an essential first step . The community understands blockchain business models, and they have the cryptocurrency to invest in new blockchain ventures . The second step should be your market and users, including enterprise clients, end-users, and the public . Match up with these two audiences, there are two phases of marketing . The first is fundraising . The second is go-to-market strategy and execution .

Community Engagement

Like Open Source Linux before it, the blockchain ecosystem thrives because an army of motivated developers and their friends, (and their friends’ friends), are believers . They may have political, or social or other strong beliefs, but whatever those beliefs are, these developers see cryptocurrencies and blockchain as an embodiment of this open, decentralized ethos .

The other component of this community is a sense of belonging . Any community engagement you undertake should be focused on creating an environment that encourages people to not only join, but actively work with you and the community to improve your message, user experience and overall solution .


My favorite quote about community comes from Jono Bacon, one of the best community strategists and managers in the world:

“An economy is a set of shared concepts and processes that grow and change in an effort to generate a form of capital. In a financial economy, participants put goods and services on the market to generate financial capital. The processes and techniques they use include measuring sales, strategic marketing, enabling ease of access, and so forth. A social economy is the same thing — but we are the product, and the capital is respect and trust. The processes and techniques here are different — open communication mediums, easy access to tools, and so on — but the basic principles are the same.”

Investment

VCs have been the backbone of the tech industry for three decades . This has mostly been a 1:1 process . To raise smart money, you needed a great idea, a strong team and clear path to product/market fit . It’s how innovative product ideas and business models have raised funds to make their way to market . Beyond some good PR aircover, startups didn’t need a robust pre-raise marketing strategy to close funding .

But there are downsides to “smart” VC money . They take significant equity ownership, their influence is concentrated and their goals may, in time, conflict with the company’s users .

This model has been turned on its head with ICOs . In 2012, the JOBS Act was signed into law to enable crowdfunding for the first time in the US . Now, crowdfunding can be the best way to raise money for tokenized, blockchain-based companies and foundations . This is a new step—a different step—in startup creation and growth . Instead of soliciting attention from a handful of VCs, blockchain companies raise money from the “crowd .” In this case, the crowd is made up of everyone who owns cryptocurrency . In many cases, it makes practical sense to limit fundraising to “Accredited Investors,” especially at the early stages . With that said, a pool of money from accredited investors is still much different then VC money and offers a lot more liquidity .

Minimum Viable Product

A fundamental step in any go-to-market process is ensuring customer and market feedback for the first version of the product or service you plan to release . Your early adopters will be a combination of crypto enthusiasts, who have overlapping interest between crypto/blockchain, and early adopters in your specific market . It could be finance, insurance, supply chain, etc .



Approaching the Chasm Before You Try to Cross It

Just like getting MVP feedback from innovators and early adopters, you need to build brand and word-of-mouth momentum with your “innovator” and “early adopter” users . This requires a combination of blockchain-focused community activity as well as education and POCs in your target market .

One example is Sweetbridge, a blockchain-based Supply Chain organization running global, active engagements with blockchain communities . They attend conferences, meetups, and events for the blockchain community, but they also create content to engage with non-crypto users and to talk about the benefits of their solutions . This includes speaking at non-blockchain events, as well as hitching a ride on the rising stars of popular Youtube technology personalities .

Network Effects

No product or solution will become successful in the post-internet age if it doesn’t scale quickly . This is often attributed to the idea that new “internet scale” products and services have to “fail fast .” You’re either successful with product/market fit or you have to move on . The blockchain space is not as experienced at marketing as Web 2 .0 solutions, so it will take more time

before the S-curve of scaling effects can lift off towards success . However, this framework is still a good heuristic for your marketing strategy .

“Network effects” is another phrase to describe the underlying engine that drives this kind of scale—especially for a relatively new industry that doesn’t already have hundreds of millions of users . The way you get the S-curve growth you want in the blockchain space is to provide incentives for users to join your solution and recommend it to others . There are so many examples of this in the tech world, from the original viral approach of Hotmail, to the relentless network driven growth of Facebook .



After engaging with the crypto community and raising money, blockchain companies need to execute a totally different playbook for go-to-market. Fortunately, this is the traditional integrated digital marketing approach that is familiar to most marketers.

Blockchain Market Communications

Internal vs. External

The big challenge with marketing blockchain solutions is the complexity . A good first step for your company is to make sure everyone involved with the marketing, sales, and even operations understands how blockchains works and why it’s such an exciting vehicle for delivering user benefits . Blockchain includes so many different technologies and ideas in one integrated package that it takes a lot of time and cognitive effort to really wrap your head around it .

Ecosystem

Piggy-backing on community engagement to drive the beginnings of network effects is ecosystem development . There are two kinds of ecosystems in this context . The first involves all

the companies, products, or solutions that the user will touch to complete their overall transaction . For instance, when you go to the grocery store to buy grapes, not only do you use your credit card, but you use your car to get there and a point-of-sale terminal for the transaction . This doesn’t even touch all the hard supply chain work needed to get your grapes to the store in the first place .

To build out the ecosystem, you need to understand the essential workflow steps involved in the overall transaction your solutions work within and create technical interoperability and business partnerships to shepherd the market and individual users through the process .


Public Relations

Once again, the big challenge is being able to understand and communicate the value of blockchain to both crypto and general audiences . Consider hiring a PR agency that specializes in blockchain and crypto audiences . Some PR agencies are developing blockchain specific practices that serve the same purpose as an agency solely dedicated to the space .

Content Marketing for Blockchain Solutions

But there is still a challenge explaining the value and benefits of blockchain solutions to these traditional enterprises, government, and consumer audiences . Traditional marketing audiences don’t care about blockchains, hash-rates, or tokenized economies . They care about how new services and capabilities will improve their business or organizational efficiency . They care about lower transaction costs and new ways to trade .

Like any marketing campaign, you need to educate your audience about why blockchain solutions are uniquely qualified to deliver the experiences they desire . Clearly translating how real-world users get these benefits from blockchain-based solutions will be the ongoing work of blockchain marketing .

Making the Complex Simple

This has been the mantra of marketing for tech products and services from time immemorial—internet time, that is . As long as IBM and Ma Bell have been selling services to enterprise and government customers, there has been a need for making challenging technical ideas make sense to non-technical audiences, the decision makers who will ultimately stroke the check .

Video

Most humans learn visually . More than any market segment I’ve ever been a part of, blockchain solutions lend themselves to, or even require, visual explanation . The very first thing any blockchain company, solution, or foundation does is create a brief explainer video that can be understood by non-technical audiences . These videos are mostly motion graphics animations and can be developed relatively quickly at low cost .

Social Media

This is the most important marketing you’ll be doing, outside of explainer videos . Social media is the nexus of marketing content, community conversation, sentiment, and network effect .




Beyond the obvious channels of Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, maintaining a well-managed and engaging chat platform is essential . At the beginning of the blockchain phenomenon, the platform of choice was Slack . Unfortunately, Slack got hacked . Over and over . The initial wave led to scams being posted with administrator channel identification, causing a lot of damage . Users with certain kinds of cryptocurrency wallets were targeted with too-good-to-be-true offers . It’s sometime hard to parse in the crypto world, but when someone is offering you free money, don’t take the bait .

Since the cryptocurrency community has moved on from Slack, most have settled on running channels on Telegram . Telegram is supposedly secure, but only in certain chat modes . So be careful about which social chat platform you use and make sure you’re using it as securely as possible .

Separate from security, if you have an active blockchain project, you need a combination of a full-time manager for your online conversations, in addition to, ideally, a chatbot or two . These chatbots can alleviate the grind of answering the same FAQ questions over and over by automating replies, while being able to alert you to new questions . Plus, if you can add a bot to measure overall community sentiment, most of your heavy lifting on social can be automated .

Email

Email marketing is still a valuable strategy in the USA to achieve an array of blockchain marketing business goals, and there are plenty of great resources on how to do it effectively . The future of email marketing, though, is companies like earn .com, where people pay you for your attention and to take certain actions . For example, you can review a white paper, join their Telegram group, and answer a few questions to earn one dollar and up for your attention . Register for an account here (and we get $1 in Bitcoin ) .

Pay for Attention

We can imagine a future where all advertising is done with tokens, paying simply and directly to people whose attention we want instead of going through the middle man of “publishers” and “media” . We still think there is a role for publishers and media, just how everyone gets paid will shift .

The model by which tokens get paid at scale is what blockchain is precisely great for . The Brave Browser and BAT token, for example, contain a ledger system that anonymously measures user attention aggregate to accurately reward publishers . In January 2018, for example, Brave “air dropped” $1 million worth of cryptocurrency-backed tokens . Beyond marketing, expect “pay for attention” to dominate a host of industries .

http://earn.com/jassalian/referral/?a=c93sn9smz1htm4x2


Moving Forward Together

The future of marketing for blockchain solutions is a mix of the old and new. We need to take what we’ve learned from the world of open source community management and apply it to blockchain communities and customers.

In fact, we need to start treating blockchain “customers” as users who are members of our larger community ecosystem . Once we have an early adopter community that embraces the goals and ethos of blockchain-based products, then we layer on the traditional digital marketing playbook that acts as a multiplier for our solutions, communities and our messages .

The way forward for marketing the blockchain is embracing the community to build the market together .

Conclusion

We would love to discuss what Viewstream can do for you .

CONTACT VIEWSTREAM

© 2018 Viewstream, Inc . All rights reserved .

For more information, please visit viewstream.com .

http://viewstream.com/work-with-us/

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ultimate guide to blockchain growth · 2018-04-23 · audiences . these videos are mostly motion...

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